Dante Basco | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, Jonathan and Mark get into the detective business.

Episode 5.9 “Choices”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on June 30th, 1989)

Working as private investigators, Mark and Jonathan are approached by a Vietnamese couple who are looking for the two sons that they gave up for adoption many years ago. They gave the boys up so that they could escape Vietnam and live in America, safe from communism. Now, the father (Dr. Haing S. Ngor) wants to bring his sons back to Singapore, despite the fact that both of them have been adopted by good people and the oldest has been accepted to a prestigious college.

This was an above average episode of Highway to Heaven. It was undoubtedly heavy-handed and there were more than a few minutes where the dialogue was a bit too spot-on for its own good. But ultimately, the episode was so earnest and heartfelt that the viewer couldn’t help but forgive the show’s flaws. This particular episode was very well-acted, especially by Dr. Haing S. Ngor. A Cambodian who lost most of his family after the Khmer Rogue came to power and attempted to return the country to “Year Zero” by killing off anyone who was considered to be too educated or cosmopolitan, Dr. Ngor survived by disguising the fact that he was an educated doctor. After the fall of the Khmer Rogue, Ngor made his way to Thailand and eventually to America. He won an Oscar for playing a character who suffered much as he suffered in The Killing Fields (a film about communist atrocities that has the gall to unironically include John Lennon’s Imagine on the soundtrack). In this episode, Ngor gives a strong performance as a stubborn man who struggles with the fact that his sons have grown up in his absence. Tragically, seven years after this episode aired, Dr. Ngor was murdered in his driveway. Though a group of gang members were arrested and convicted of his murder, it’s always been known that his murder was ordered by Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rogue.

The final season of Highway to Heaven has been uneven but this was a good episode.

Michael Jai White is Bone, an ex-convict who also happens to be a badass martial artist. After getting out of prison, Bone heads to Los Angeles and rents a room from Tamara (Nona Gaye), a foster mother to three kids. Once there, he hooks up with Pinball (Dante Basco) and enters the underground street-fighting scene, quickly gaining a reputation as the best fighter around. This catches the attention of the ruthless James (Eamonn Walker) who controls the local fighting action. Bone takes a special interest in James’ woman, the beautiful Angela (Michelle Belegrin). When Bone easily dispatches James’ best fighter Hammer (Bob Sapp), James invites him into his life because he wants him to take on Pretty Boy Price (Matt Mullins). Price is the prize fighter of the wealthy and powerful Franklin McVeigh (Julian Sands), and James sees Bone as his chance to beat Price and join the big time. But Bone is much more complicated than he initially seems, and he has an agenda that involves Angela and keeping a promise he made to an old friend.

I’m a fan of B-movie star and martial artist Michael Jai White. I remember buying the DVD of BLOOD AND BONE a decade or more ago and thinking it was a good movie. I decided to revisit the film today and my opinion remains the same. It has a memorable opening scene where mixed martial artist Kimbo Slice and his crew confront White’s character Bone in the bathroom of an unnamed prison. Slice runs his mouth, and we soon learn that Bone is the biggest badass around. It’s a simple, awesome scene that proves to be a perfect introduction to our hero. From this point forward, BLOOD AND BONE seems to follow a similar storyline to my favorite Charles Bronson film HARD TIMES (1975). In HARD TIMES, Bronson is a badass fighter who rolls into town, hooks up with the fast talking James Coburn, dominates the local street fighting competition, and then heads back out of town. In BLOOD AND BONE, Michael Jai White rolls into town, hooks up with the fast talking Dante Basco, and dominates the local street fighting competition. However, in this film we find out that White is doing all of this to keep a jailhouse promise to a friend before heading out of town. I like White as an actor, martial artist, and charismatic screen presence, so I was all in as the action and the story played out.

Aside from Michael Jai White’s basic badass character, I also like the relationship that develops between his Bone and Nona Gaye’s character, Tamara. She has a world weariness and bullshit detector, but she also realizes that his character has more depth than it may initially appear. They have some good moments sprinkled throughout the film that seem more grounded in reality than your typical B action movie relationships. Eamonn Walker is appropriately evil as the ruthless James, a man who has zero redeeming qualities. His character may not be set in the real world, but a movie like this needs someone to really dislike and Walker fits the bill. Dante Basco is fine as the fast-talking Pinball who helps break Bone into the underground fighting scene, but I didn’t find his character especially memorable. Julian Sands is prominently billed, but his part is quite small. He shows up at the beginning and the end, and delivers an outrageous monologue to Eamonn Walker about how he and his rich, white buddies are entertained by African Americans, but they don’t really want to hang out with them. It’s a pretty uncomfortable scene to be honest with you even though it’s being delivered to a completely despicable character.

Overall, I like BLOOD AND BONE as a badass action and martial arts film with some heart. It’s not always easy to watch as it’s pretty violent, with multiple arms broken and shoulders dislocated to graphic effect. It also throws around some inappropriate slurs, which is somewhat typical of B movies made fifteen to twenty years ago, but they still stand out in this day and time. However, thanks to Michael Jai White’s badass performance, BLOOD AND BONE delivers the goods for anyone looking for an entertaining, bone-crunching action film. In that context, I definitely recommend it. See the trailer below: